Vijayawada: EC summons CS, DGP

Vijayawada : Taking cognizance of continued post-poll violence in Andhra Pradesh, the Election Commission of India on Wednesday summoned state's Chief Secretary Jawahar Reddy and DGP Harish Kumar Gupta on Thursday to ‘personally explain’ administration's failure to contain the violent incidents.

This has given rise to speculations that the ECI may even contemplate to change the Chief Secretary. The EC reminded the state government that the Model Code of Conduct was still in force and asked the Chief Secretary and the police chief to ensure such incidents are not repeated.

The Commission has repeatedly emphasised that there is no place for violence in a democracy and since the announcement of Lok Sabha elections, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar has been personally monitoring the election space to ensure peaceful and violence-free conduct of polls, officials pointed out. The two poll observers Rammohan Mishra and Deepak Mishra sent a report to ECI saying that the administration had failed in containing the violence.

When they appear at the EC headquarters on Thursday, the top Andhra Pradesh officials will be asked about preemptive steps being taken to avoid such incidents in the future, the sources said.

Post-poll violence was reported in parts of Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday where the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls were held together on Monday. The leaders of the ruling YSRCP and Opposition TDP have levelled allegations against each other for the incidents.

The ECI has ordered the DGP to place all the political leaders concerned and contesting candidates under house arrest and then lodge FIRs. More particularly, the ECI is serious about the incidents that happened at Tadipatri, Macherla, Chilakaluripet and Chandragiri Assembly constituencies, after the elections were completed, informed Mukesh Kumar Meena, Chief Electoral Officer. The ECI has given clear instructions to book cases against all the people who damaged the EVM machines during the polling, he said.

Meena said the police are not allowed to file FIRs mentioning that ‘unknown people’ resorted to the violence at the Polling Stations , since each polling stations have video footage and the perpetrators could be traced. Hence, the police are directed to immediately arrest all these accused people and put them behind bars.

Further, Meena said the ECI has also ordered to take stringent punishment action on the police officials and other election staff who deliberately indulged in dereliction of the election duties.

The CEO said that the severe action is being initiated not just against the perpetrators who directly indulged in the violence, but also the people behind them and provoked them also would be booked.

He added that the police already started arresting the accused persons in the State from Tuesday night onwards and it would be completed by next couple of days.

Meena said perpetrators would be sent to jail and the police are working on it. For instance, about 30 people were arrested for Chandragiri violence.

Apart from that, the police have placed pickets at 715 places to check the movement of the trouble mongers and the concerned district collectors have promulgated Section 144 under CrPC, wherever necessitated, he added.